Recently, there is a social problem of an influence on environments by a carbonyl compound of aldehydes such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein and the like and ketones such as acetone, methyl ethyl ketone and the like in water and atmosphere, and particularly, an influence by a carbonyl compound diffused from building materials, furniture and the like on dwelling environments and working environments due to air tightness of dwelling houses, or the like constitutes a social problem. For investigating a countermeasure for such a problem, it is necessary to measure the quantity of a carbonyl compound in atmosphere, and development of a method capable of simply measuring the quantity of a carbonyl compound in atmosphere in room and the like is desired.
Regarding the method of quantifying a carbonyl compound, a carbonyl compound scavenger obtained by coating silica gel with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (hereinafter, referred to as DNPH in some cases) is disclosed in “Waters, high performance liquid chromatography column-consumable articles general catalogue 2002cep pack for atmosphere, DNPH/ozone scriber, page 20, Nippon Waters K.K.” and “2001 chromatography article catalogue, pp. 78 to 80. Sigma Aldrich Japan K.K., published on August, 2001” and it is disclosed that this scavenger collects a carbonyl compound to form a reaction substance of DNPH with a carbonyl compound, then, the scavenger is washed with an organic solvent, resultantly, the reaction substance is eluted, and can be quantified by gas chromatography or liquid chromatography.
Further, regarding the quantification method using a compound other than hydrazine, a quantification method using a carbonyl compound scavenger obtained by impregnating silica gel with O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl)hydroxyamine (hereinafter, referred to as PFBOA in some cases) and phosphoric acid is reported in “Yasuaki Mori et al., Environmental Chemistry, vol. 7pp. 515 to 520 (1997)” and also the present inventors have reported that a mineral acid salt of an O-(haloalkoxybenzyl)hydroxyamine-based compound, specifically, an O-(4-trifluoromethoxybenzyl)hydroxyamine hydrochloride is allowed to be retained on a cation exchanger to produce a carbonyl compound scavenger, and this scavenger collects a carbonyl compound to form an imine compound of the hydrochloride with a carbonyl compound, then, the scavenger is washed with an organic solvent, resultantly, the imine compound is eluted and can be quantified by a gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GO/MS) (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2002-195990).
The present inventors have investigated a scavenger using DNPH and clarified that since it is extremely excellent in reactivity with a carbonyl compound, it can quantify a carbonyl compound of low concentration, however, it reacts with a trace amount of carbonyl compound present in air In atmosphere or room even before measurement such as in production of the scavenger and the like, to provide dispersed blank value before measurement, consequently, there is a problem that it is difficult to correctly measure a carbonyl compound of low concentration unless quantification is effected using a lot of scavengers.
Further, the present inventors have sampled an air sample in general dwelling environments of approximately 25 to 30° C. using the above-mentioned scavenger containing PFBOA instead of DNPH, to resultantly clarify that formaldehyde can be collected only approximately 70 to 77% as compared with a scavenger containing DNPH and a carbonyl compound cannot be collected sufficiently in some cases even if a carbonyl compound scavenger containing PFBOA is used, under high temperature such as in summer and the like.
Furthermore, it has been clarified that an imine compound composed of an O-(4-trifluoromethoxybenzyl)hydroxyamine hydrochloride and a carbonyl compound does not have a UV absorption peak of 240 nm, and it is difficult to quantify the compound by liquid chromatography using a generally used UV detector.